What You Were
by The Smiling Shadow
Summary: After the war Smith was saved by the Master, the Frenchman. He was wiped clean and kept as an assassin. But the One needed to be complete, and the One needed Smith. Only then would the Mistress Persephone intervene.


They called him Smith, and they called him Jones, and they called the shortest one Brown. He didn't understand why, the reasoning for these names. It was just what he had always been called by the Master, and no one was supposed to question the Master. It was actually really strange, since his older brothers had much richer names. There was Cain and Abel, Cujo, Vlad, Trainman, and even his wife had a much prettier name, Persephone. It seemed out of pattern that with such beautiful names he would be given the common and plain name of "Smith." But then again, the Master didn't really have much of a pattern, he was quite human in that sense, very erratic, sometimes doing things out of will with no reasoning or logic. Sometimes he asked the impossible just to see if the servants attempted to do them, and of course they did.

He assumed that it was just a joke, another thing to tease him with, as he really never liked the name "Smith," and would have preferred a much colorful name like, "Thomas" for instance or the even more beautiful sounding "Neo." But no, the Master taunted him with his very plain name of "Smith." The Master always did, and he didn't understand why. The Master always gave him the short end of the stick and grunt work when he was not a grunt but a high ranking assassin. And he was completely sure that if he was put into a position where he had to take on the Master's children, One and Two, the ghost children, he could win. But despite the many enemies he had slain in his Master's name, the Master never grew respect for him. Smith had given up really trying or expecting much from the Master except a scowl. Still Smith was a good assassin not for his Master or his cause, but because he quite enjoyed it.

He doesn't remember much from his past, but he does know he had one. The Master said when he first woke up that he had been exiled from the Machine Mother, abandoned, thought worthless and was about to be deleted when the Master saved him. He doesn't remember what his purpose was in the Machine world, or what he did to lose the right to live and carry out that purpose, he only knows the Master saved him, and it is the Master's will that he stays alive. And Smith, despite the low rank in the Master's mind, wants to live. So he stays obedient as they all stay obedient.

He was rescued, as the Master said, the same day Jones and Brown were, and he felt it was only fitting to name them all commonly with plain names. Smith doesn't talk to Brown or Jones much, as they are kept by Mistress Persephone and are not assassins like him. But occasionally he will see them down in the dungeons where they are able to spend some downtime.

He also sees Jones and Brown on nights like tonight.

Tonight is a special night as the Master is about to meet with some special guests that he, as an assassin, may have to take care of. Tonight they meet at a restaurant the Master owns, and tonight Jones and Brown play music. As the Mistress Persephone has discovered their immense talents with instruments, she requests they always play on nights like tonight. Brown plays piano and Jones plays the Cello. Smith is not allowed to sit at the table unlike One or Two with the Master, but he doesn't mind standing. So Smith strays away a bit towards Jones and Brown, enjoying their music.

He stands near them, tilting his head at their unison in the song as it difficult to hear them over everyone dining around them. They're dressed in suits like he is as they play and he wonders why that may be, but doesn't think much of it. Brown takes notice to Smith's wanderings and looks up at him. Smith comes closer.

"Hello." Brown quietly says over his piano.

"Hello." Smith replies. "You both are very skilled." He compliments.

"Thank you. And you are very skilled with your gun."

Brown smiles, Smith smiles.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" The Merovingian, the Master yells at them. "GET AWAY FROM THEM! You are my body guard, not theirs!"

Smith quickly retreats back to the table, standing next the Mistress.

"How dare you leave my side!" The Master begins screaming in French, and throwing his wine glass at him. "PICK IT UP!"

Smith gets covered in the red wine, and bends down to pick up the glass.

"Why keep him on such a short leash?" Persephone asked.

"If I don't do you know what could happen?" He says angrily.

"But men like him shouldn't be limited."

"They should when they've killed a Messiah!"

"Messiah?" Smith quietly asked.

"YOU!" Master yelled. "You don't speak for the week! You've lost your privilege! Clean yourself up!"

Smith almost spoke but quickly stopped himself and bent down to air the wine off his black pants. Then a hand reached up to him and began drying him off with a napkin. He looked up at saw Persephone grinning at him, as she wiped down his legs. She stopped and smiled, rising back up to the table.

"Honestly, you're paranoid." She said.

Jones and Brown begin playing. Dining begins. A special cake is delivered to a beautiful woman. The guests arrive in black they come in three as they often do and sit to negotiate. One looks directly at Smith, which is quite unusual as the Master orders his guests not to pay any attention to his body guards, for he does not want to be tempted to use them.

"We want him." The leader points at Smith.

"What? Why?" The Merovingian asks.

"We need him."

"Oh that was enlightening. WHY do you need him?"

"We are prepared to make an arrangement for his person." The leader goes on.

"What on Earth could you possibly offer me?"

"Not the eyes."

"Then you have nothing I want."

The Master often met with men like these, men and women in black with dark sunglasses and never in suits. Often times they speak in a calm manner and the Master screams at them in foreign tongues, tongues Smith is familiar with, and he is surprised by what Master says to these people, such harsh words, even in other languages.

"Damn it, we need him!" The women yells. "This goes beyond you, Merovingian, this goes far beyond you! He has a bigger purpose now!"

"Enough! He is mine, and if I cannot have anything greater than he, you will never have him. Nothing goes beyond me. Nothing can stop me. Nothing can end me."

The conversation goes on but Smith doesn't really listen, he never really listens, he only knows how this is about to end. The people soon leave after much arguing. The Master looks at him and nods. Smith begins to follow the trio, to the elevator, taking another one and meeting them in the Lobby. His door opens to the three people in black aiming guns at him. Smith doesn't move and instinctively raises his arms.

"Don't do this." The woman says.

"Why?" Smith asks.

"Because you don't want to."

"Honestly, I don't care." Smith tells her.

"But you're better than this. Don't you remember? Don't you remember him? Don't you feel him?"

"Him, who?"

"HIM!" She yells.

"He needs you, Smith." The leader says. "He can't come back without you, he needs to be whole, and he can't be whole without you."

"Who are you talking about?"

Smith doesn't understand what they are talking about, but slowly begins to lower his gun, and they lower theirs. He doesn't remember this "him" and he doesn't recognize their concern. He doesn't know of any feeling. At his home he feels nothing, for he is in the Master's home, and in that home he is a slave, and as a slave he feels nothing, sees nothing, hears nothing but his Master's walls.

"Smith, it's been years!" The leader tells him. "He's calling you, can't you hear him, he's calling you, he needs you."

Ding goes the elevator, One and Two step out with bullets, killing the three people in black. Smith's eyes widen in surprise, and his mouth drops open as he looks to the Twins in rage.

"Good job distracting them." One says.

"Now clean it up." Two finishes.

-----------------

He walked down the halls of the Castle of his Master. He would go down into the dungeon where the Dojo was, and train with Cain or Abel, or anyone that was willing to train. No one ever was however, no one trained with him. They all hated him for some reason that was beyond him. He had never done anything to them, he came into the Master's protection and they hated him. Always beating him, always scowling him, always never accepting him. He did not understand why, and it often became frustrating.

He didn't understand it, after all he had done for the Master. There was no reward, no offering of compassion, of thanks.

But he had to go on like this, it was unsafe outside where Agents ran free. There was safety in the numbers the Master had, and the endless mazes of his ever changing castle. Smith was a good assassin, skilled with his gun, but on his own out there in the Matrix, he wouldn't last. At least that is what the Master has told him.

Then again, the Master has never really let him out of the restaurants or clubs or castle. He's never been in the Matrix really.

And he's only seen the Agents once or twice.

Smith suddenly stops looking behind him to see Jones coming towards him. Jones stops, looking to the floor and slowly looking up at him.

"She…she wanted me to tell you that she wants you." Jones said.

Then he grabbed Smith's hand and began taking him down the hallways to the Mistress. Jones then lets go as he pulls out a key from his necklace under his shirt, and uses it to unlock a special door, thus changing where it leads just like everything else in the Castle. Jones allowed Smith to go in first, and made sure to lock the door in a special way.

Smith had never been in this room before, but there were many rooms he wasn't allowed into and had never been in. He was cautious and he walked in, passing a library with a television in it and a fireplace. Further inward finding a kitchen with some pancakes cooking on the stove. He looks around to find a small dining room, then a living room. Then a large room with a glass door that led to the balcony. This was apparently an apartment complex. Rain beat on the glass and the Mistress stood in silhouette in front of the door.

"This used to be ours." She said. "His and mine, before this whole thing. When we had flesh and hearts and blood. When we were alive…when we were human. When he was the Messiah, and I was his divinity…"

Smith doesn't speak, he knows he's not supposed to speak to her or any body for the rest of the week.

"It's okay, you may speak. He doesn't know about this place, I built it from scratch. He doesn't even know I know how to write programs…" She assured him.

Smith looked to the right to see a large King sized bed with many pillows and blankets. There sat Brown, a leash around his neck and attached to the wall, like a dog. He was stuck on that leash, forever trapped to the bed of Persephone's desires. She chose him, saying that one fateful day that he was the cutest one, his skin looked the softest. He sat there covered by the blankets, wearing only his boxers, as he stared at Smith in all shame. Jones finally came rushing in, immediately going to Brown, and wrapping him up further in the blankets for cover, resting his head on his, protecting him.

The Master had given Jones and Brown to the Mistress as a gift. For the Mistress was emotional like humans, but needed others to feel the emotion. She was given men from the Master, and often times she would have her way with them and that'd be it, Jones and Brown were the longest she had ever kept anyone. But programs have such little life to offer when compared to people, real people. Smith always wondered why she kept them.

"He was different before. When we were human…it was all different. We didn't know back then…we had no idea."

She turned to him.

"We lived her for five years, newly married, thinking about starting a family. But then these people come with this Messiah bull shit, and he sacrifices my life and his for nothing! Nothing but a…an equation that had to made…and the whole thing started again, but we…we were not us anymore. We were not the Messiah and the Divinity, no. We were dead, and all that we fought for dead. Only through his love did we survive. Only because he loved me did he save our minds and made us into these…things! These…minds with no bodies. And he couldn't…he couldn't handle just being alone, he needed power, he needed recognition that he had as a Savior! And so he became a King! King of the dream world he wanted so much to destroy!"

"I don't understand…" Smith said.

"You were there." She interrupted. "In a different body, a different face. But you're always there. You always balance the equation."

She walks closely to him.

"You were the one that killed me…" She whispered.

"Mistress, I have done no such thing."

"Not in this life, no. But there have been many lives, my dear Smith."

"I still don't understand."

Smith looks at Jones and Brown, Brown has retreated into Jones' arms, and he's currently shaking.

The Mistress speaks on and he doesn't understand. He doesn't see how he could ever effect the world she speaks of, nonetheless she herself or the Master. He would never do the things she spoke of. Never disobey, never run away, never kill her. But she goes on, circling him like the predator she is, finally coming again to him, standing in front of him, approaching him.

"He is afraid of you." She whispered. "That is why he treats you so."

"Why would he be afraid of me?"

She laughs.

"He couldn't have taken all those memories away, could he? No…you were too strong for his influence, I didn't believe him when he said he had wiped you clean…" She spoke softly. "You must remember something."

He shook his head, and her eyes filled with sadness. She suddenly seemed cold, her hope was gone. She wrapped her arms around herself and began to walk to the bed towards Jones and Brown. She sat on the bed, crawling over to Jones and Brown. Jones squeezed Brown tighter, almost keeping him away from her. But she demanded Brown for herself, and slowly pulled him away, gently, having mercy. He whimpered as she placed her hand on his cheek, wiping up to his forehead and hair. He stared at her, fearful, but beaten.

"Don't worry." She told Brown.

Then she looked over to Smith.

"Look at you. You disgust me." She told him. "You were so beautiful and look how you so blindly submit. Just like an Agent!"

"Is…that what I am? Am I an Agent?"

"NO!" She screams. "You are something far greater! You are amazing, and beautiful! You were…and now look what he's done to you, it's a crime. He took you from the sky, Smith, he took off your wings and left you to bleed out your hate…He took it away, every last bit didn't he? Just me. Just like us all."

Her voice filled with the wisdom of centuries and the sorrow that came with it. Her heart sank heavily and her breathing slowed into the sadness. She sat there, no longer the Mistress he had known all these years. She was not strong like the Master, she did not engage hate or power. She did not stare at him and give him fear. She did not have that coldness, that lack of joy in her eyes. No. This was not his Mistress. This was Persephone, the women who was once the Divinity of a One long forgotten. Now she has over time been reduced to nothing more than a monument to the Merovingian's humanity. The remnant of the life he had when he was the Savior, the remaining of his love for a women he saw as dead. Persephone the empty shell who remembered being full.

She sat at the edge of her bed, Jones covering Brown in his coat and holding him close, rubbing his arms. She lowered her head, and sank into her self. She became small and afraid in those moments. Her eyes filled the greatest desire he had ever seen. The burning desire for love and freedom. The lust for love, the lust to be loved, the lust for something more than this cold and harsh power that knew not how to care for her. She was Persephone, the forced wife of Hades and there she sat in her personal room in Hell. Her hope sank and her eyes lost their glow. She slowly exhaled and looked up at him again.

"He killed you like he killed me." She said.

"What exactly did he kill in me?" Smith asked her.

"Everything, he turned you back into the dog you were under the system…"

She rose again and walked right up to him, wrapping her arms around him and looking up at him.

"You were a raging fire when I last saw you. You breathed life into yourself, and you consumed everything in your path. You made the entire world burn, and the heavens themselves wept because of you! Such passion I had never seen, such hate, such glorious desire."

She cupped his face in her hands making him look at you.

"You were King of this world at a time. You came and you killed us. You dethroned the Merovingian, and you…. Then you moved on, consuming everything else. You were the only one that ever matched my own desire. And now look at you, pathetic how you've fallen. You were so great, so beautiful, and now you are but a minion."

"Mistress…what you say is difficult to believe." He tried. "I don't know if I do…"

"But you want to." She said. "You want to remember the time when you were King and not even a Messiah could have defeated you!"

She then pushed her face into his chest.

"So beautiful…" She said.

Then she smiled.

"Would…would you like to taste the passion I saw in you?" She asked.

He nodded slowly, and she smiled. Then she pushed him towards her, and she kissed him.

She kissed him and in her altered code she gave him the emotion of desire, passion, from herself. She gave him what he once gave her those years ago. The code for the emotional response transferred between the programs, and Smith slowly rose with the seed of desire inside him. He waited a moment as it grew into a memory, a reminder of what he once felt. He began looking around this room for a moment, confused, then back at her.

And he grabbed her and kissed her again. He wanted more. More passion, more desire, more sparks of what he once was.

He pushed her towards the bed, and they fell onto the covers. Jones held Brown, not allowing him to see them, and he himself looked away. Smith continued to meet her lips, to transfer the emotion, the passion, the desire, the burning desire for more desire. It erupted in his code like nothing before it. It erupted within him, filling him, and leaving him wanting more.

Like a drug he wanted it.

Persephone arched her back, and raised her head, laughing, as he moved down to her neck. He was taking off his jacket, loosening his tie as his flesh touched her, and his code sucked it out of her.

Persephone only loved, as she grabbed him by his hair and lifted his head.

"Do you remember now?" She asked.

"I want more."

"Do you remember now?"

"Give me more!"

"More what? Do you even know what it is I am giving you? Do you even have any desire for my gift?"

She began pulling herself away from him, crawling back towards Jones and Brown, leaving him there at the edge of the bed. She went to Brown, once again tearing him from Jones' arms. She placed her fine hands on his shoulders and watched as his eyes filled to the brim with tears. She wiped his cheek.

"Why do you cry?" She asked him. "This is a moment of celebration, when I give you all what you most desire…"

"Mistress…" Brown tried. "No more…"

"No, little Brownie, there shall be no more. Tell him…Tell your leader what my gift is." She looked to Smith.

"…Emotion." Brown whispered. "Your pain, Mistress. No more pain." Brown said.

"No, Brown, you will take no more of my pain." She said. "He will." She looked at Smith. "Because he wants it. Don't you, Smith? You want it, because its taste is familiar. Pain, suffering, lust, all of it was once yours."

Then she went to Brown and took off his demeaning collar, and Brown immediately went to Jones, crawling off the bed, and falling on the floor. Jones went and held him up, as Brown backed away slowly. And Persephone only looked at Smith.

"What will you do with us!?" Jones yelled.

"You are no longer mine." Persephone said. "You are his." She looked to Smith.

"I want more." Smith said.

Persephone got up, getting some keys from the drawer. She walked to the closet door, and turned the key, unlocking a whole new doorway. She opened the door to what appeared to be a sewer system.

"This is where you will find them. Humans that will tell you all you need to know. Who you were, what you did. Here you will meet a man named Neo, searching to be complete. He will call for you. He will give you all that you need." She said. "Now go, become what you were."

Smith was hesitant.

"What was I?" He asked her. "What will they do with me?"

"They will welcome you, and complete you, despite creating their genocide, because they need you."

"Genocide? What did I do?"

"You became everything."

"TELL ME!" He screamed at her.

"No. It is not my purpose to say. Just go, leave this horrible place. Please…"

Brown was collecting his clothes on the floor, he was fastening his belt and putting on his shirt as he ran to the closet with Jones.

"Smith, let's go!" Brown told him. "She's letting us go, let's go!"

Smith slowly walked towards her. He grabbed her one last time, and kissed her one last time.

Then he walked out, leading Jones and Brown. Smith escaped Hell.

---------------------

I'll probably come back to this. Do another sister story to this detailing Smith's time with the Merovingian. Selina once said Smith and Persephone would make a good couple, I fully agree, but their relationship would not be founded in love, but they'd be using each other. At least I think.


End file.
